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Article: Early Modern Period: Art Historical Interpretations
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
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EARLY MODERN PERIOD: ART HISTORICAL INTERPRETATIONS
EARLY MODERN PERIOD: ART HISTORICAL INTERPRETATIONS.
The practice of critical evaluation in early modern art rests upon the foundations of biography, rhetoric, and poetics. Giorgio Vasari (1511
–
1574), Italian writer and artist, launched Renaissance art history with his
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects
(first edition, 1550), a compendium of biographical sketches. The language of rhetoric and poetics established the terms for writing about literature and the visual arts with the appearance of Cicero's
De oratore
(On speaking), the first book published in Italy, and Aristotle's
Poetics,
translated into ...